ZAGREB, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Croatian government will no longer issue quotas for foreign workers, further opening the labor market here, daily newspaper Vecernji list reported on Wednesday.

According to a draft of the new Aliens Act, employers will hire foreign workers based on a labor market test that will be conducted by the Croatian Employment Service. If there are no unemployed persons for a wanted job in their records, the Employment Service would assent the Ministry of the Interior to issue working permits for foreign workers.

In some professions, the import of foreign workers will be fully liberalized. It will be decided by the Governing Council after the evaluation of the national, regional and local labor market.

The draft of the new law specifies that these are jobs that are lacking workers in the local market and cannot be replaced by migrations in the country. Vecernji list reports that the market test will not be conducted for seasonal agricultural workers.

According to the draft, employers who do not pay taxes or have no employees, or who are not paying salaries, will not be allowed to hire foreigners. The share of foreign workers in the company cannot be more than a third of the total number of employees.

Since the Croatian Employment Service needs time to prepare for the new law, the Vecernji list writes that the government will still issue the legally mandated quotas for foreign workers for the first few months in 2020. According to the daily, the Croatian Employers Association is proposing 81,600 temporary permits.

Croatia, a member state of the European Union since 2013, is faced with mass emigration of young people who are leaving for better job opportunities in other EU-countries. The southeastern European country is troubled by labor shortage, especially in the construction and tourism industries. In 2019, the government issued more than 60,000 work permits for foreign nationals.